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Article: Making sense of social history.(New Topics And Historians)
- Article from:
- Journal of Social History
- Article date:
- September 22, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Journal of Social History. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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[M]an is affirmed in the objective world not only in the act of thinking, but with all his senses.... The forming of the five senses is a labor of the entire history of the world down to the present. Karl Marx (1)
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Eric Hobsbawm was in ebullient mood in 1970. "It is a good moment to be a social historian," he concluded his influential essay, "From Social History to the History of Society." For reasons he'd understand but because of developments in the writing of the history of the senses that he probably didn't anticipate, Hobsbawm might well sound a similar note of optimism were he to write the essay today. (2)
I'd like to suggest why ...